What is the Scope of Industrial Engineering?

The term engineering often brings to mind images of blueprints and schematics and of a person working diligently at the detailed minutia at the beginning of any type of production process. While this is accurate for many fields of engineering, industrial engineering is a different type of engineering endeavor.

While most engineers develop products, industrial engineers mostly work at developing systems and processes that, at their core, increase efficiencies and reduce waste. Time, effort, finances, and the will of a workforce can all be wasted, leading to avoidable losses. That is where the industrial engineer comes in. In a nutshell, the industrial engineer is responsible for the optimization of complex systems.

Industrial Engineering in Quality Control

How does quality control fall under the scope of an industrial engineer? According to Ryan from The Green Gate Group “Quality control is the act of maintaining standards in manufactured products. This is done by having well-designed and streamlined processes that measure the manufacturing outputs against the specifications outlined for any given product. Who designs these systems? Industrial engineers.”

It is also the industrial engineer that interprets and locates problems in the control charts and finds solutions to each of those challenges. Without the industrial engineer, quality control on a large scale would be a guessing game at best and a disaster at worst.

The Supply Chain and Industrial Engineering

Does the supply chain depend on industrial engineers? Absolutely! The supply chain, when viewed from a macro lens, is an immense collection of complex systems, interacting with each other to manufacture, transport, and deliver goods and services to end users. Industrial engineers improve operations efficiencies and optimize production processes making their work an integral part of the supply chain in any field.

Production Processes that are Affected by Industrial Engineers

Almost every production process on the planet has been influenced by industrial engineers. Even products that are made locally and in small batches using raw materials that have been moved through systems designed by industrial engineers.

As an industrial engineer, the scope of your work could include optimizing safety procedures in production processes, designing equipment, discovering the best use of production resources, or any other number of production-related challenges. Whether you are a system engineer, process engineer, safety engineer, or equipment engineer (all different types of industrial engineers), the production process simply wouldn’t work without your input.

Industrial Engineering Jobs

For those pursuing careers in industrial engineering, the opportunities are abundant. All manner of industries need industrial engineers and with the right engineering courses and degrees, you would be a valuable asset to many companies.

You can study industrial engineering in many colleges and universities across the UK with degree courses tailored to those that want to use their talents to make the world a more efficient and productive place. Is a career as an industrial engineer right for you?